


For the Love of Children

by inmyownreality



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Leia Organa Deserves Better 2k16, graphic abuse of commas, i'm cyring, it's 2 am someone send help, leia's crying, what if, whatever., you're crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmyownreality/pseuds/inmyownreality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a secret they don’t tell you, growing up. A universally agreed upon secret that each mother, each father, will find out for themselves: Your children will hurt you.</p><p>"This now,” she thinks, “this is the worst. This is how my child ends me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Love of Children

There’s a secret they don’t tell you, growing up. It’s something that all parents hide. A universally agreed upon secret that each mother, each father, will find out for themselves: your children will hurt you.

Oh, she expects it. The pain a distant thought, as her hand curves around her belly to the place below her heart where little feet kick against her. She can already feel his mind in hers – a connection few have. She feels heavy with him as she moves, the weight of him pressing both her body and mind and, already, Leia loves him.

She has never felt this overwhelming, unconditional love before, and she knows, without a doubt, she would bear any pain for her child. She expects him to hurt her her as she enters labor. It is a pain gladly given. It is overpowering, but brief and in a short, agonizing time she is holding him. He has her eyes. She weeps.

She expected childbirth to hurt her. The secret is, it’s not the last time her child will cause her pain. Just as she squeezes life into him, just as she wraps him in love and her finger in his fist, he too will have the power to grip her heart and squeeze the life out of her.

She loves him, cradles him, raises him, and sends him away for his own safety - even as it leaves her own throat and heart tight and gasping for breath to see him walk away. In return, his heart is twisted and he rejects her - rejects her name, rejects her love - denies every part of himself.

But: she carried him with her for nine months, felt him grow inside her, was with him from his first moment of existence and so she can feel him as he rottens and festers. She’s always there, a fragile light, even if he refuses to acknowledge her.

She can feel every time he slinks further into the dark as he kills his way across the galaxy. Each life he extinguishes is a dull, aching stab in her heart.Your children will hurt you. It rings true - even truer when the blunt poke turns into a sharp, gaping tear that tatters heart and womb as she feels her child kill his father.

The world stops, her head spins , and this pain also is overpowering, but it lingers. “ _This now,” she thinks, “this is the worst. This is how my child ends me._ ” His mind rips from hers and leaves only a thread behind. She is cold, alone, and empty.

She is wrong.

The worst pain her child will cause her, happens like this:

She sees him again. He is different than the eleven year old child she sent away. The slope of his nose, arch of his brow, point of his chin, freckles of his skin, they are all the same - if older. The scar, that is an ugly, faded red, bisecting his face is new. As is the empty hatred of his eyes.

She walks towards him. She pulls on the thread of his mind, watches as he flinches. She can see the moment it hits him: her overwhelming, overpowering, unconditional love for him. The recognition she won’t redeem him but she may forgive him.

Forgiveness. He can’t imagine.

She has never, in her heart of hearts, stopped loving him.

He falls to his knees in front of her, presses his forehead to her womb. She curves her hand around his head, cradles him just below her heart. She kisses his brow and finds the small, dangling thread. She takes a moment to consider it, consider him. This tiny thread which has anchored them from the moment of conception.

With his head in the hands that birthed him, raised him, adored him, she snaps the thread.

And

Just as all those years ago, she squeezed life and love into him and him into the world, and stared into the eyes of her only child -

She gently tugs on the Force around her, gazes into his familiar face. She sees her reflection in his eyes, and Leia squeezes the life out of him.

She feels the last of her bruised and battered heart -heart and hope which had once been so full - follow him (he drags it with him, after all, it belongs to him) leaving her alone and cold.

“ _No one told me my child would hurt me,”_ she thinks, as she buries him next to her mother, father, husband, planet. “ _It’s a secret.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry. Really, I am. 
> 
> Please ignore grammar mistakes, I'm on my tablet.


End file.
